


Crowley Goes Too Fast For His Alarm

by FacetiousKitten



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Awake the Snake (Good Omens), Cuddling, M/M, Post-Episode: Good Omens: Lockdown, because i'm a basic bitch, but it's only because crowley is freezing, chapter names from Queen songs, cold snek is cold, fuck off if you disagree, i’m sorry. that was very aggressive., just kidding. nothing involving Queen is in any way basic, like he's LITERALLY freezing, nonconsensual removal of clothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24637687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FacetiousKitten/pseuds/FacetiousKitten
Summary: The angel said no, don't come over during lockdown.  What's a snake to do?Crowley decides to nap for a few months.  He sets his alarm for July - or so he thinks.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 176





	1. Set My Alarm Turn On My Charm

**Author's Note:**

> Rating may go up, depending on what the muse wants.

It is an unsurprising fact of nature that reptiles do not tolerate cold temperatures. Snow? Sleet? Winter storms? No. They refuse. Hence: hibernation, brumation, _et cetera_. Scientists tend to categorize these activities as adaptations for survival, but really, they are passive aggressive acts from creatures who are rightly pissed off at their creator for what they see as a massive, extremely inconvenient design flaw. Don’t create a cold-blooded animal and set it loose on a planet that experiences winter without expecting it to outright refuse to leave its room for months at a time.

But what to do when one is an occult, supernatural snake being, living on Earth and moving around with one’s entire demonic essence tucked away in a roughly human shaped body?[1]

The above is an important question for such a being named Anthony J. Crowley.

Crowley’s answer is, generally, a big shrug. There were times when he had work assignments in Siberia, Scandinavia, Alaska, the Himalayas, and a myriad other Excessively Cold Locations, and he could not avoid them. In general, one cannot avoid assignments when one’s supervisor manages Hell and boosts productivity with a cat o’ nine tails in one hand and a red hot poker in the other. (Whether an assistant stands by, wielding sprinkles of salt or splashes of Red Bull, is neither here nor there.)

In those days, Crowley had to, as they say, grin and bear it. Nothing to do but don nineteen layers of the warmest wool and get to work. Occasionally, he avoided all of that with ~~lying~~ ~~embellishing~~ creative reports, artistic procrastination, or by recruiting the help of an angel with the use of ~~temptations~~ ~~mutually beneficial work exchanges~~ strategic mentions of the local food culture and art scene.

These days, however? Crowley has no boss and no productivity-minded supervisor with sycophantic assistants. He is, in a sense, retired, with only himself to answer to… and an angel whom he likes very much but hasn’t exactly _stated_ he likes. Well, he has hinted, but it’s complicated, okay?

That angel is the reason Crowley is in a bit of a pickle at the moment.

**

_This is entirely untrue. Crowley himself is the reason he’s in a bit of a pickle, as the actions which put him in the aforementioned pickle were undertaken by himself and himself alone. Don’t say that to him, though, or you may find yourself in a bit of a pickle._

**

Now, as for that brine preserved vegetable – er, undesired situation of Crowley’s.

Crowley informed the angel – the one whom he likes very much but hasn’t explicitly stated he likes – that he would nap for a bit. His intention was to awaken in July, when he assumed that the state of the world would be less dire and, hopefully, much less boring for a newly retired demon.[2] Unfortunately for Anthony J. Crowley, his alarm didn’t quite do the job.

The phone conversation with the angel left him feeling a scoche defeated and, well, thwarted. A dirty word for a demon. With his emotions in a mess, all of them floating in an algae infested pond like so many dead fish, Crowley placed the receiver of his “retro” (read: old and ugly) telephone on the base.[3] Hastily, he went to his bedroom and set his mobile phone alarm for July. He expended quick demonic miracles to switch his clothing to black silk pajamas and to set his affairs in order. The rent on his flat would be paid for, or at least ignored; his beloved vehicle would deflect all non-Crowley attention; his plants would be watered _and_ doused in ambient menace at intervals ideally suited to proper growth.

Most importantly, or most relevant to this tale, Crowley ensured that the temperature in his flat would remain comfortable for a slumbering reptile-in-human-skin. For two months. Which, in his haste and his dead-fish-emotional-mess frame of mind, was _not_ the time for which he programmed his mobile phone’ s alarm to ring. The amount of time for which he programmed the alarm? _One year_ and two months.

**

_This is a suitable moment to pause and reconsider a sentence three paragraphs up. The sentence right there at the end of that paragraph. Well, the second half of that sentence: “his alarm didn’t quite do the job.” You and I are both cognizant of the fact that the alarm is not to blame. However, let’s reconsider yet another sentence further up, starting with “Don’t say that to him…” Use your best judgment, as we are dealing with a literal demon from the depths of Hell, and I will use mine._

**

Crowley, with his true form, his demonic essence, his _self_ , all shoved into that lean, limber, humanish flesh suit, sometimes feels like ten pounds of angry hornets buzzing around in a five pound bag.[4] Now, however, he feels like a six-foot-one-inch, four-limbed serpent which has been stripped of its scales, baked to a tooth cracking consistency, and then tossed out in the snow by a teenager in the grips of a pubescent, hormonal fit.

Speaking of snow, Mayfair is coated in it.

The retired demon knows instantly that something is very, _very_ wrong. He can hardly move. He takes a deep breath, not because he _needs_ to, but because he’s spent the entirety of Earth’s history learning to do it automatically. That first, automatic breath exits his lips as fog.

Crowley’s brain may be as sluggish as a concussed sloth, but it certainly registers that this is bad. It tells him: warmth. At the same time, it also tells him: Aziraphale. (Brains aren’t limited in how many statements they can make at once. Rather moot, since they don’t have mouths.)

 _Aziraphale!_ Aziraphale was expecting him!

**

_Is that the much-liked angel whom Crowley hasn’t told that he is much-liked? Indeed, friend. Indeed._

**

Stumbling around exactly as an upright serpent would – frequent faceplants, rolling along walls, wobbling, slithering through doorways – Crowley leaves the bed, finds his car keys, exits his flat, and takes the lift to the first floor. His precious Bentley is coated in traffic tickets and snow. The car delights in the reappearance of its AWOL demon and starts its engine before his creaking, ice block fingers begin their mad scrabble at the door handle.

Somehow, Crowley and his car pool their resources to open the door. He all but collapses to the front seat, shivering and shuddering like he expects his plants to do in his presence.

The windscreen is obscured by the snow, but he doesn’t need to see the road to drive. Actually, he doesn’t need to drive at all. The Bentley knows the way to the angel’s bookshop, and Crowley only has to whisper his name for the car to get him there.

* * *

[1] _Very_ roughly.

[2] Causes: quarantines, lockdowns, isolation orders, on and on. You know the deal. You, presumably, don’t live under a rock.

[3] It’s old and ugly, yes. But it’s the telephone that the angel ( _that_ angel, the one he likes very much) preferred to call. Thus, Crowley keeps it.

[4] No, that illustration doesn’t entirely make sense, but neither does shoving supernatural entities into earthly meat vessels.


	2. Watching Some Good Friends Screaming Let Me Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's the much-liked angel doing?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to elf_on_the_shelf for the beta and all the cheerleading! You're the best. <3

The much-liked angel who doesn’t know how extensively he is liked by a profoundly dramatic snake demon glares un-likably[1] at a trio of PhD students. They need to leave, but won’t take the hint. He has reading to do! Music to listen to! Tea to drink! Or hot cocoa! With brandy! Cocoa _is_ especially wonderful during the holiday season, after all.

 _Holidays!_ Wonderful time for peppermint, he thinks. Were he of earthly descent, his mouth would water at the prospect of creamy cocoa with a splash of soothing mint. There’s sure to be some peppermint Schnapps somewhere in the building.

The students look like they’re _finally_ leaving, thank goodness. Aziraphale can tell that they’re in a PhD program by their general _everything._ He appreciates their thirst for knowledge as much as the next intellectual, but they drop in at the same time every single Thursday, and that’s just not the sort of thing he cares to add to his weekly schedule.

**

_So long as he hasn’t closed the shop early. Has he closed early some Thursdays just to thwart the students? How dare you! The mere implication-!_

_One shouldn’t accuse an angel of such a thing. An angel of the Lord, with full access to powers titled “smiting” and “holy wrath.”_

_In short: do please shut your mouth._

**

“Oh, wait!” one student says. Aziraphale could scream. “I want to get this one.”

Aziraphale smiles sweetly as the student approaches him. “I’m sorry, dear, but I’ve already closed the till.”

The student stops in her tracks. “Wh- huh?”

“I have an appointment in a short while, and had to close the till early in anticipation.”

“I can’t buy it?”

“Afraid not.” He extends a hand. “Here. I can put it back on the shelf for you.”

Stunned, she gives it over, and the group leaves. They’re muttering unhappily. Not a surprise.

“Have a wonderful evening,” he calls after them, sweet as honey. Any sweeter and treacle would ooze from his mouth and from the students’ ears. If he weren’t preoccupied with thoughts of peppermint, his tone would put him in the mood for mead and honeyed pears. He _is_ preoccupied with thoughts of peppermint, though, and therefore heats the milk, melts the chocolate, stirs in the Schnapps. The gramophone crackles to life with a flick of his wrist, and the lilting melody of Vivaldi’s _Four Seasons_ trickles out.

“Spring has sprung!” Aziraphale says with a head-to-toe wiggle as the string instruments bounce out the movement of the same name. At his desk, he settles in with his current book, a thick old tome analyzing the effects in literature of the Adam and Eve “myth,”[2] as well as their fall from grace. It is only a few thousand pages; he will likely finish by morning.

He’s fairly certain that he has read this one before, but it doesn’t hurt to review important works. Besides, it’s nice to reminisce about those good old days in the garden, before everything ~~got interesting~~ went to pot.

**

_Did he choose his reading material because it reminds him of a certain demon – the demon whom he does not know just how much… yeah, you get the deal – and of that demon’s wiles? Because it reminds him of a time when that demon was wide awake and causing all kinds of ~~fun~~ chaos in the world? Bite thy tongue, fiend! Bite thy tongue!_

**

Aziraphale takes a generous swig of his beverage, delighting in the heat that descended to his stomach. Perfect temperature. As if he could make it any way other than perfect.[3]

After a few pages, he’s already tutting at the author. _My, but aren’t they pompous._ Quite a lot of mocking religion, _and_ a heavy handed emphasis on traditional gender roles. Marking the page with a finger, Aziraphale closes the book to check the author’s name on the spine… Ah! No _wonder_ this is riddled with such self-absorption. This fellow was the biggest fuddy duddy of his day. An incredible amount of research went into the book, but the meat of it is stuck between the author’s asinine opinions and a hard place.

Aziraphale flips to the hellacious bibliography. He tuts some more, and throws in a _tsk_ for good measure. This fellow referenced such an amount of books, papers, interviews, paintings, and more, that it boggles even Aziraphale’s big brain. A teaspoon of humility[4] would have gone a long way for the author’s career, for he was clearly an accomplished scholar.

He lifts the book to gingerly flip to the front again when a much missed sound shocks him into dropping it. The weight of the publication rattles the desk. Cocoa splashes dangerously close to the book; a quick miracle stops the liquid in its tracks.

He can scarcely believe it.

“Crowley?”

A vehicle which _must_ be the Bentley screeches to a halt near his front door. He knows because he’s heard that very sound a thousand, five thousand, maybe ten thousand times. Ignoring the little voice in his big brain which says he’s been mistaken before, Aziraphale stands and straightens his waistcoat. For good measure, he places a padlocked, soundproof box around the mean little brain voice. Then, he goes to the door.

“Wait. No,” he mutters. “Can’t look too eager.” Glancing around for something to do for a few seconds, he spots the book that the PhD student tried to purchase.[5] Perfect. He moves it to a new shelf, which probably needs a rearrange anyway. The student and her little gang of cohorts have gotten too familiar with its layout.

He’s doing fine – perfectly fine! – and not at _all_ counting the seconds. But, when ninety seconds pass, he’s surprised. After one hundred and eighty pass, he’s confused. At three hundred, he’s angry. At three hundred and four, he’s concerned. Three hundred and seven-point-one-six, he feels a fool, and knows that some random idiot parked illegally at his front door.

Time to set some humans on the straight and narrow.

There’s an imperious “Now see here!” right beside a barbed “Can I _help_ you?” on Aziraphale’s tongue when he turns the doorknob. Whichever one comes out will depend upon his whims once he glimpses the other side of the door. But, what’s out there, or rather _who_ is out there, throws all that out the window. The state of the _who_ in question thoroughly defenestrates his prepared words, as well as all the foolishness he’d been feeling since second three hundred and seven-point-one-six.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaims as Crowley mutters, “Angggggelllll…” Crowley says this while slumping forward on a one-way trip to the floor, but Aziraphale catches him, wondering what the hell is going on and why the _extra_ hell Crowley was leaned against the door instead of barging in like always.[6]

Aziraphale half hoists, half drags Crowley over the threshold and kicks the door shut. “What’s this about, dear boy?”

“Wazzzzz… s’pposed t’ sssssee you. When woke up.” Crowley isn’t hissing, as he is prone to do in times of excitement. He is slurring. His lips are gray, and his eyelids are, too.

“Where are your glasses? Why are you in pyjamas? No coat?”

Clutching Aziraphale’s shoulders, Crowley tries unsuccessfully to stand. His hands are like ice, chilling Aziraphale’s skin even through his cardigan, waistcoat, shirt, and undershirt.

“I… ‘zzz in bed. Came. T’ sssee yooooouuu.” He dips toward the floor, and Aziraphale catches him again, under the arms. He helps him to the sofa, where he drops unceremoniously among the blankets. Aziraphale wraps them around him, bundling him like temaki sushi.

“Crowley, who did this?”

No answer. Aziraphale pats his arm.

“Mmnuh!”

“Who did this to you?”

“Iunno. Wot?”

“Let’s get you some tea, yes? Warm you up.” Aziraphale snaps a small cup of tea into existence, slightly warmer than perfect drinking temperature. It’s not as good this way, miracled instead of heated and steeped the human way, but right now, heat is more important than flavor.

Crowley lets his nose dip into the liquid, and he sputters.

“What happened?” Aziraphale asked once he clears the excess fluid from Crowley’s nostrils with naught but another snap.[7]

“Woke up.”

“You’re frigid!”

“Rude.”

“Crowley!”

“Woke up. Came ‘t ssssee yooooou.” Crowley’s eyes struggle to stay open, but there’s an obvious smile on his lips. “I’m here, angggel.”

Despite his worry, Aziraphale returns the smile. “So you are.”

Crowley’s gray eyelids slide together. Aziraphale shoves the teacup at him.

“Drink, please. You have to warm up.”

There’s little response, so Aziraphale cradles the back of Crowley’s head in his hand and tips him forward, helping him drink. They get through the whole cup this way.

It doesn’t work. Crowley is shivering, nearly comatose. The skin on his face and hands has sailed well past clammy and into dry ice territory. He’s so cold to the touch that he feels like a long forgotten aspic, languishing in the refrigerator, the desiccated surface stretched thin across overly firm gelatin.

“Let’s try, ah, maybe…” Aziraphale casts about for something, _anything_ that could help, and snags on the cocoa on his desk. “Cocoa! Yes! Nice and hot. With Schnapps, too!”

That doesn’t work, either. Most of the first sip dribbles out the sides of Crowley’s mouth, and he doesn’t swallow. If any went down, it’s too little to have an effect.

Aziraphale sets the cocoa aside and pats Crowley’s cheek gently, then less than gently. Then, an outright slap. If anything could awaken him, it would be that. The sting, the disrespect. But there’s nothing. No response. Crowley is fully comatose.

Using miracles on one another sometimes had unpredictable results,[8] like one time when Crowley heard, but didn’t see, Aziraphale approaching in a bar sometime in the 1980s. He – she, at the time – thought Aziraphale was the man who’d been pestering her to dance all evening, and she tossed out a little demonic magic to strike him with explosive, belching gas. Aziraphale spent the night in the loo, retching in a manner most unangelic and unable to stop, no matter what he or Crowley tried.

But Aziraphale is getting desperate.

“Come, dear, wake up,” he says, and snaps his fingers. Crowley does nothing but slump deeper into the sofa.

Now Aziraphale is terrified, gripped by a terror he’s felt very few times. Once, when God asked after his flaming sword. Twice, when handed a slip of paper in St. James’s Park in 1862. Thrice, when Satan popped up like a rotten-toothed daisy after Adam Young ended Armageddon as if it were a past due electric bill and he were a shredder.

At a complete loss, he paces in front of the sofa. Alarm bells are ringing so loudly in his mind that they drown out all logic. Crowley is important, the most important. Aziraphale’s best friend, his partner in crime – so to speak.

**

_As a rule, angels don’t commit crimes. Then again, rules are made to be ~~broken~~ bent. When an angel has an Arrangement-with-a-capital-A set up with a demon, the aforementioned angel might, technically, commit crimes. Only, of course, under the auspices of the Arrangement, and done only in the demon’s name._

_And so, technically – very,_ very _technically – Aziraphale and Crowley are not partners in crime. They are partners in Arrangement._

_Don’t argue. It’s far too complicated for mortal minds to comprehend. Just take that old cliché at face value and do not scrutinize. Remember, too, that we are dealing with powerful, if foolish, immortal beings._

**

Aziraphale takes a seat beside Crowley, who is still slumped over like a sack of potatoes in Antarctica. What is this affliction? Could it cause discorporation? Or… death?

What is Aziraphale to do?

He touches Crowley’s forehead, and feels the opposite of a fever. His skin practically steals heat from Aziraphale’s hand. If Aziraphale could transfer his own body heat to his friend, he would.

“Aha!” He remembers the fireplace in his flat upstairs.

Crowley is a proud creature who wouldn’t appreciate being carried, but Aziraphale carries him anyway because there’s nothing else to be done. Gathering Crowley in his arms like a bundle of sticks that is also somehow a puddle, Aziraphale holds him bridal-style[9] and makes for the stairs. Arms and legs dangle like lizards clinging to children’s earlobes with a desperate bite.[10]

Upstairs they went, hopefully to a cure.

* * *

[1] This description for one character has gotten a tad cumbersome.

[2] Oh, but doesn’t that make him laugh.

[3] He could, in fact, make it some way other than perfect.

[4] On second thought, better make that a cup.

[5] The _nerve!_

[6] He didn’t _barge in_ so much as he stepped to the door without expecting it to keep him out. It usually obliged him, provided Aziraphale wasn’t in an anti-Crowley type of mood and the bookshop didn’t care to take the piss out of one or both of them.

[7] Good thing Aziraphale isn’t human, because Crowley might have drowned. Aziraphale is _not_ getting his holy hands dirty with the nasal area of a corporation, even a corporation as handsome as Crowley’s.

[8] The miracle Aziraphale just used to clear tea from Crowley’s airway doesn’t count, because that was aimed at the tea, not Crowley’s person. _Take that, plotholes!_

[9] No comment.

[10] Dear reader, if you never attached a small lizard to your earlobe when you were young, then you either have not _lived_ or just are not stupid. This author leans toward believing the latter, because if you were stupid, you would not be reading this story. This story is only for the most intelligent of individuals.


	3. Let Us Cling Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The much-awaited (?) conclusion!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, posting chapter 2: Sorry it took me so long to update!  
> Me, posting chapter 3: Hold my beer.

The fire in the fireplace roars. The angel-whom-is-much-liked sets the demon-who-really-really-likes-him[1] in a cushy chair, and scoots the chair close to the fireplace. He pats the demon’s cheek, says the demon’s name. Gets no answer. Hasn’t the heart for another slap.

Aziraphale puts another log in the fire. The log might have found its way to his grip by materializing from the ether, trillions upon trillions of atoms lumped together when all they intended to do was attend a concert or have a nice lunch break.[2] Or, the log might have left a wood pile from somewhere very far away, disappearing from the bottom of the pile and causing the whole thing to collapse, then reappearing in Aziraphale’s grip for a premature date with flames.

Who knows how it happened? Not Aziraphale, that’s for certain. He is in too much of a rush. The wily serpent won’t _wake up_ already, and Aziraphale is having himself a righteous fit.[3] He’s getting a wee bit snitty, to boot.

Boots! He unties Crowley’s boots and brings his bare feet nearer the fire. It’s been a long time since he has seen the demon’s feet – eighty years, thereabout – and the intimacy of the action is no less striking than before. Back then, fortunately, Crowley was wide awake, but now he’s, well. He’s very much not. It makes Aziraphale feel terrible, like he’s doing this all against Crowley’s wishes. He’d like to think that Crowley would understand, but there’s no way of knowing until he wakes up.

Aziraphale gives it a few minutes, fretting over his friend and over the fire. There is, however, no improvement. He pulls the chair yet closer to the fireplace, begins to rub Crowley’s feet between his hands. It’s a cliché to say that they’re like ice blocks, but they really are.[4]

The polar ice caps might be melting, but Anthony J. Crowley is frozen solid.

Aziraphale rubs faster. Crowley’s feet only seem to grow colder.

“Oh, you stupid demon. Freezing snake!”

Aziraphale gives in to the temptation to use a warming miracle on Crowley’s feet, and looks at them. The skin under the toenails is a pale gray. What’s an angel to do?

He puts the back of his hand on Crowley’s forehead. No temperature change there, either. Aziraphale cups Crowley’s frigid ears and repeats the warming miracle. Waste of effort. The demon’s lips are still gray, and turning grayer. His eyelids are purpling. It’s strange to see them at all.

Crowley’s hands had felt off-limits somehow, but Aziraphale can’t stand it anymore. He takes Crowley’s hands between his own and rubs. Tries another warming miracle. Luckless, all around.

Aziraphale can only hover over the serpent in the chair and fret. Nothing he tried has worked. What in God’s name is an angel to _do?_

**

_In God’s name, he should probably smite demons on sight, but we all know Aziraphale better than that._

**

Uselessly, he paces the room, looking for anything at all that might help. Moving too quickly, he stubs his toe on the bedframe, and – first of all, “Ouch!” Second of all…

Oh, that’s silly. Awfully, terribly silly. Nothing but a folk remedy, old-fashioned, unlikely to work. An invasion of privacy, too.

He twiddles his thumbs, staring at his best friend, prone and freezing to death. Every attempt at warming him has failed. What does he have to lose?

**

_His best friend, that’s what._

**

Aziraphale all but flings off his coat, like an unidentified piece of grit under his fingernail, and drapes it over the back of an empty wooden chair, chasing that with his waistcoat. He unbuttons his shirt, glancing guiltily at Crowley. The guilt skyrockets when he lifts the limp figure and places him on the bed, and then it shoots up higher than the Tower of Babel when Aziraphale undoes the first button of Crowley’s pyjama shirt.

“My dear boy,” he says, hands shaking, more upset than he’s been since the world tried its very best to end, since Heaven and Hell tried their very best to end _them_ _._ “If you can hear me, please understand that I tried everything else I could think of, and that I wouldn’t be doing this otherwise. Oh, I hope you can forgive me.”

Crowley doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Does- does he normally breathe?

“I’m desperately sorry, darling,” Aziraphale whispers, too frantic to censor the endearment. “But I don’t know what else to do.”

* * *

When Crowley awakes, it’s in bits and pieces.

The first sensation is _warm._ It’s nice. The second sensation is _warmth._ It’s also nice.

The third sensation is… he’s on top of something? No, some _one._ He stays very still, not even daring to breathe. He doesn’t need to, anyway.[5] There’s a lot of skin touching his skin – against his chest? – and arms wrapped around him, holding him secure.

For some reason, despite the profound strangeness and unknown-ness of the situation, Crowley feels a deep sense of tranquility and belonging. These are things which come as naturally to a demon as beauty to an anglerfish.

At last, he breathes in, and smells _fire_ and _dust,_ but also _bookshop_ and _angel._

Angel? Angel angel angel- he thinks this one word until it loses meaning, until it wraps around to regain meaning.

Crowley opens his mouth to speak, but his vocal folds[6] are creaky as an old barn door. After a few tries, he croaks that most meaningful of meaningless words: “Angel?”

The some _one_ under him startles. “Ah! Crowley! You’re awake! Finally!”

“Uh, yeah?” He’s still croaking like a dead pig.[7] “I was asleep?”

“Yes! You were! Quite! Ah, well, more like passed out. Comatose.”

Crowley pushes up on his elbow. Looks down. His pyjama shirt is gaping open, entirely unbuttoned. Beneath him is an expanse of pale skin, someone else’s skin, furred with blonde hair; the skin is rapidly mottling into a dark pink hue. At length, he raises his head to find that Aziraphale is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the owner of the aforementioned expanse of pale, lightly furred skin.

Aziraphale’s face is extremely red.

Crowley’s face is extremely confused. The rest of him is also confused. He’s just- just _extremely_ confused.

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done this, I know, but you- you’re just so cold, and weren’t waking up.” Aziraphale pulls his shirt closed. “I was frightened.”

Groggy, so very groggy, his brain a bundle of limp noodles, Crowley doesn’t know what to say. Can hardly _say_ anything.

“Now that you’re awake, I’ll, ah, um, go. Just- just let you rest.” Aziraphale shifts, begins to get up, but Crowley doesn’t want him to. Crowley puts his arm around him, holds tight, lowers his head to Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“Stay,” Crowley says. “Please,” he whispers. He’s dangerously close to getting _really_ mushy, but luckily his voice is far too crusty to speak more.

Aziraphale swallows loudly. Crowley, with his creaky, croaking vocal folds, is kind of jealous.

“I’m terribly, terribly sorry,” Aziraphale says. “I tried everything else that I could think of. Cocoa, brandy. Putting you in front of the fire, miracling you warmer. Rubbing your feet.”

Crowley’s head jerks up. “You ru-” He turns away to clear his throat. “Rubbed my feet?”

“Ah. Yes. I shouldn’t have, shouldn’t have done any of this, but I panicked.”

Returning to Aziraphale’s shoulder, Crowley says, “It’s okay.”

“Would- would you like something warm to drink? Tea, perhaps?”

That sounds nice, but Crowley says no. He doesn’t want Aziraphale, this angel he likes so very, very much, to go anywhere.

“Are you cold?” Aziraphale asks.

“Not anymore.”

Aziraphale touches Crowley’s forehead. “That seems to be the case. You’re warm _er,_ at the very least. Your hands and feet were like ice.”

They’re silent for a minute, until Aziraphale asks, “You… you really want me to stay here?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then I will.”

Arms wrap around Crowley, and he’s warmer than he’s ever been.

* * *

“Didn’t know you even had a bed,” Crowley says later, when they’re both fully awake and drinking hot tea in that bed. Their shirts are still wide open because, well, in for a penny, in for a pound.[8]

**

 _The tea is middling, because Aziraphale miracled it up. He would have gone downstairs to brew a pot the good way, but_ someone _didn’t want him to leave the bed, because_ someone _is still cold._

**

“I do close my eyes about once every half century,” Aziraphale says as if admitting he had committed murder.[9] “But only for a few minutes.”

“If the dust on every surface is any indicator, you’re due for your next nap.”

“Er. I, ah, might have done so earlier this year. Armageddon was awfully stressful, and it tuckered me out more than I realized.”

“Naughty boy,” Crowley drawls.

“Says the demon who overslept by five months!”

“Right. What _is_ the date?”

“December twenty-third.”

Crowley nods. “So I still have a day to get you a Christmas present.”

“You’ve never gotten me one before.”

“Yes, I have! The _Dog_ Bible!”

Aziraphale waves him off. “That was payback for covering one of your temptations in Finland.”

“First of all, it was Norway. Svalbard, to be exact.”

“I thought that was part of Denmark?”

Ignoring him, for he does not know whether Svalbard is currently Norwegian or Danish, Crowley says, “Second, that bible was a gift, not payback. Third, I should get you some _real_ payback for going, since if _I_ had gone, I would’ve probably turned to ice then, too.”

“And who would have been there to thaw you out, then?”

Crowley drinks some tea, appreciating the warmth, though not the flavor. “I would’ve thawed on my own, you know. Back then, and this time.”

“What!?”

“Yup. This has happened before. Once, in Sweden, and another time in a mountain range in China.”

“H- how? Wouldn’t it discorporate you?”

“Never heard of brumation?”

Aziraphale makes a throaty sound that is an approximation of the word “no.” More accurately, “NO!”[10]

“It’s like hibernation lite. Snakes and a few other animals do it. If I’m not careful, it happens to me, and it might’ve happened this time. Not certain why, though my flat _was_ freezing.” Crowley stares into the middle distance for a moment. “Could see my breath and everything. Anyway, I owe you one.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I owe you two!”

“You owe me nothing.”

Over the steaming tea,[11] Crowley glares at him like he would a pumpkin spice latte.

**

_That is, like he hates it but wants it very, very badly, and like he hates that he wants it so badly._

**

“Don’t get all holiday cheerful on me.”

“Really, Crowley. All the payback I require is that you survive, and you’ve done that.”

Crowley sees pink patches forming anew on Aziraphale’s cheeks and chest,[12] and feels an answering blush on his own face.[13]

“Oh, look! You’re getting some color back to your skin!”

Could he go back to brumation, now?[14]

“How’s your temperature?” Aziraphale touches the back of his hand to Crowley’s forehead, which is embarrassing and enraging.

“Will you quit that?”

“Once you’ve returned to normal. You’re nearly there, I think.”

“We’re well past normal, Aziraphale.” Crowley eyes Aziraphale’s open shirt. With one hand Aziraphale pulls it closed, looking ready to dance the gavotte in the middle of the M25, and Crowley simply can’t have that. “No, no, we’re fine. We’re fine. This is… it’s nice.”

Aziraphale clutches the two sides of his shirt, holding them together. “You don’t like nice. Nice is a _four letter word_ for a demon.”

“I’m retired. I can make an exception this one time.”

“Just this once,” Aziraphale says robotically.

“Or. Um. Again.” Crowley sets his tea on the nightstand, careful to keep it level among the pile of books and knickknacks, and scoots down until he’s lying on his back. He opens his arms, beckoning. “Again?”

Staring at his tea, Aziraphale says, “I shouldn’t have done this in the first place.”

“You kept me warm.”

“You said yourself that you probably would have woken on your own.”

“Probably woke up earlier than I would otherwise, thanks to you.” When Aziraphale continues to stare at his tea, Crowley says, “We both know that tea isn’t very good.”

Aziraphale laughs. What a welcome sound.

“Maybe I’m still cold. Maybe I need an angel to keep me from brumating again.”

“Did you just verb ‘brumation’?”

“Don’t deflect.” Crowley lowers his arms. “Would you rather I left?”

Aziraphale puts his tea aside and lays on his side. “Would you rather leave?”

“No.” Again, he opens his arms. Beckons. Tries not to look desperate. Probably fails.[15] But Aziraphale goes to him, finally, and holds him close. It’s everything Crowley has ever wanted.

If Crowley spends the better part of a day sleeping, well, who could blame him? He is, after all, a giant snake packed into a humanoid corporation, and he’s as warm as he could ever be. When he awakens, having escaped brumation but not the circle of Aziraphale’s arms, he realizes that the warmest part of him is his heart.

The wildest part? He doesn’t even mind how cheesy that sounds, because all that matters is that the angel he likes very, very much is the one keeping him warm.

* * *

[1]Not much point in dancing around the reality of it now, is there?

[2]Do atoms have concerts, or lunch? Maybe they do, and we simply haven’t developed microscopes strong enough to see. Maybe they have families and careers and entire lives, and we simply can’t _see._

[3]Can an angel have any other kind of fit?

[4]Some humans who are “in the know” about demons and angels assume that Crowley has weird things going on with his feet: scales, talons, actual snakeskin, _et cetera._ Truth is, they’re much like typical human feet, minus being a bit overlarge. Being a snake who walks upright, his balance is not the best. He needs large feet the way a ship needs an anchor. Or something like that.

[5]That said, there are a lot of things he doesn’t need to do, but does anyway.

[6]Yes, they are called vocal _folds,_ not vocal chords. If Crowley were aware of their true name, he would take credit for the confusion.

[7]Do pigs croak? Is that the sound they make?

[8]That’s probably not a proper use of that old saying.

[9]Which, technically, he has never done. _Technically._

[10]Even more accurately, “HELL TO THE _NO!_ ”

[11]Aziraphale made sure the tea stayed piping hot, no matter how long it took them to drink it.

[12]Kind of adorable. It’s annoying.

[13]Annoying. Not at all adorable.

[14]Let it be known that Crowley had not entered a _true_ brumation. Then again, he was not a _true_ reptile.

[15]Read: definitely fails.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dropped the rating to T because the muse went soft instead of _you know._

**Author's Note:**

> I am still a habitual over-editor, so this fic might change a bit. Apologies in advance!
> 
> Edit July 1, 2020: Added a title to the first chapter! I'm shocked and appalled that I hadn't thought of it before.


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